Alma record. (Alma, Mich.) 1878-1928, 1887-06-17
BILL NYE ON ECONOMY.
A Few Phiio sophie al Remarks on
Various Grades of barber shops.

ed me. Ii related to the great expens-
es which really aggregated from little
ones, and dealt with the ma tier of dai
ly papers. boot-blacks, shaving expens-
es, baths, DC. and showed how millions
of the peoples money were annually
squandered in this way that ought to
go toward buying books. The article set
me to thinking and resolved to nves-
tigate it. | was more especially taken
with the idea of extravagances in the
matter of BARRIERS and barber-shops.
You can 90 TO gorgeous shop and
pay ID cents and tip for shave, or
YOU can 90 where you may avoid tn C
tip, or you can 60 to a 10-cent shop, or
you can get shaved on the bowery for
five cents. or you can ignore the whole
business and let the wind blow through
your whiskers.
Now let us enter the seductive and
fragrant field of statistics for moment
and see how we may economic. IL
we shave every day and tip the barber
at a l5-cent shop, whore we are dealt
with in gentle and sooth ne way by
talented men. we can readily see that
il is no great trick to invest SO 10 800
per year.
If we lower our standard and get a
plain lucent shave, with no funny
business, we can put the bill at say
$50, and we will get just as good a
shave, though of course young man
with clinginS nature, one who pines
to be fondled by some one all the time,
would miss the carcsS which tip gen
orally calls forth. This little sketch is
not for him. If no one else ever speaks
kind word TO him or pats his Adams
apple with a powder puil in playful.
bantering way. do not chide him for
tipping barber over and over if he
wants to in order TO secure these at
tentionS from one of his own sex.
Carrying the matter still further. we
find that by going down on the Bowery
we can get good, clean shave for five
cents. with bay rum and cocoaine.
This will cost Sl5 year. Or we can
allow our boards to grow wild and
woolly with fragments of cracker and
autumn leaves in them, at very tri-
fling expense.
Last week | was thunderstruck when
| found how much could be saved by
changing from 15-cent barber to a
scent barber and keeping it up for
year Counting 800 days as a fair es-
innate of the number on which would
be apt TO shave, | found that b. this
change | could have at the end of the
year $50, with which to buy books or
cross-barred trousers, or any other
means of intellectual Improvement
which | might choose. | could buy
one of those eXpens We books that Mr..
De Lux occasionally gets out, or l
could hear Patti. or buy a small yet
fragrant dog for $50. | could also buy
myself more har or get my teeth filed.
| could take class cal course on the
banjo. or buy an interest in bird dog
with $50.
But | wanted, more than anything
else, to get more books. | wanted
new photograph album most of all.
An album with illustrat on in it, to lay
on the parlor table and explain to
strangers in low, passionate tones, is a
never-ending source of pleasure to the
thinking mind. With a frontis-piece
showing the proprietor Is he looked
with side-whiskers, and. later on.
view where he had himself photograph
ed with chin-whiskers and holding a
wartime plug hat in his swollen hands;
with picture of grandmother holding
a Bible As though it might be glass
bomb, and front view of sightlcss
child that makes up for its total alb
scnce of eyes by introducing a soul
stirring mouth that would make a gol-
den-haired ball of North Carolina but
ter turn white in a single night With
all these little specimens of plastic art.
| often think that photograph album
VII do more towards entertaining a
mixed company than any other literary
work with which am familiar.
So went into low-price barber
shop week ago and began to save
$50 for the purpose of adding to my lie
brary. soon discovered that in a five
cent barber-shop you get less consider
alton and lower grade of lather up
your nose than elsewhere.
| believe that the man who shaves
YOU for five cents makes his own soap
Possibly he works up some of his
fattest patrons that way. Anyhow,
the soap he uses smells badly and tastes
worse than any soap / have ever par
ticipated in. At this price of shave
one saves financially, but he loses cuta-
neously.
The chair | sat in was not good.
easy chair, and the spiral springs in it
occasionally had In come IN tho surface